Chinese Citizens Given Bags Of Clean Air To Breathe

Citizens of Zhengzhou, one of China’s top ten most polluted cities, were given a breath of fresh air last week when a travel company imported bags of clean, mountain air for people to temporarily inhale.

The bags of mountain air were part of a publicity stunt by the company, who were promoting tourism to Laojun Mountain, which is 120 miles from the city and the source of the bagged clean air. According the Wall Street Journal, people who supped on the air tried to wrangle every last drop from the bags. A pregnant woman even proclaimed to feel her baby kick when she inhaled the fresh air and declared a desire to take her child to the mountain forests once it is born.

The promotion highlights the ever-increasing pollution problem in China. Zhengzhou has an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 158 – that is three times more than the US’s most polluted city, Bakersfield, CA which has an AQI of 45.

Though this is not the first time canned air has been sold – Mount Fuji air is a popular tourist souvenir in Japan – using it as a marketing stunt to encourage travel to cleaner air regions, shows just how severe China’s pollution problem is.